


Blatantly Correct Choice

by Aisu



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-01 23:34:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6541309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aisu/pseuds/Aisu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Golden flower tea... That's Asgore's favorite kind."</p>
<p>A child and their parent talk about flowers, for a while. A very short work about Chara and Asgore and their ties.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blatantly Correct Choice

Even now, it makes Asgore smile a little to see Chara laying on his living room floor, contentedly drawing something in their sketchpad. They seem to fit, a piece that was missing from the puzzle without anyone realizing it before it was filled in. His child, calm and at peace.

He bends down to get closer to their level, peering at the sketchpad - green and yellow, a familiar shape forming. "More flowers?" he says, grinning. "Soon we'll have two gardens - one outside, one inside."

Chara looks up at him, and while they're pouting he can tell they're not really upset. "I like flowers."

"An opinion that I share, I assure you." He settles next to them on the carpet. "I must admit, though. You draw this flower so often, but I don't think I have any like it in the garden...?"

Chara hesitates, looks back at the sketchpad, and Asgore himself draws back, concerned. He hopes he hasn't triggered another downturn, another--

His thoughts are interrupted by Chara speaking again.

"They grow on the surface," they say, softly. "I don't know what they're named, really, but I just called them golden flowers. They get big, really big, and I'd go out to the flower patch just outside town and lay down out there and kind of... sink in. Like a comfy bed. I could stay there for a long time without anyone seeing me." They don't look up from the paper. "You could eat the petals. They tasted kinda like lemons, if lemons were sweet. I think that you can make tea from them, but I never got to try any."

Asgore pauses, lets it all sink in. Chara rarely talks about the surface, and after seeing the old marks on their skin and after seeing the way they tensed at certain gestures and certain touches he and Toriel had decided to not push. Chara needed time and space. But the silence has built for a long time now, and he has slowly given up hope of Chara opening any further.

But now he wonders if maybe this is them at long last reaching out.

"Maybe someday we can have a cup of that tea together?" he says at last, and he smiles.

Chara looks up at him, and something crosses their face - shock? sorrow? - before fading into a smile.

"I'd like that."

\---

He plucks the petals carefully, one by one, adding them to the infuser. The moment they hit the hot water, the air fills with sweet fragrance, and he takes a moment to breathe in, to breathe out. To savor it. The little kitchen smells like his throne room, but richer, sweeter, more concentrated.

He counts what he thinks is right - two minutes, for something this delicate - then carefully pours from the pot. The liquid is a muted gold, glimmering and shifting in the light as it pours.

He lifts the cracked mug - #1 DAD in a child's sloppy handwriting - to his lips, and he drinks.

It tastes of sweet lemons, and it tastes of hope, and it tastes of regret.

When he's done, he hesitates, then goes to pour another cup.


End file.
